When Alex Cheatle, pictured below, was 15 he returned from a visit to India with some toys that people seemed to like. So he sent photos of them to the Indian Chamber of Commerce and ordered a couple of thousand. He has adopted the same approach to business ever since, he says: “Put yourself into a position where you are forced to follow through, using your fear of failure as a motivator.”

In this case, it involved touting his toys in Covent Garden and on the London Underground. In the process he learned something: “I absolutely hate selling products. They’re fixed. All you can do is sell them again and again, and again. I was so bored.” But he had also caught the entrepreneurial bug.